A little piece of me…

Month: May 2016

I have heard many people say that getting a new cut or style is sometimes like having a holiday. It can be incredibly refreshing to have a new look, it can also be a huge adjustment if it’s a massive change. Usually in a good way, you keep touching it and looking at it in the mirror in fascination.

I am getting a new style tomorrow night and I am super excited. I have long hair at the moment, I had been growing it long because that’s how my boyfriend liked it. Though I think long hair looks quite pretty, I find it quite annoying to look after so have always favoured short hair. Now that he and I aren’t together anymore I am going back to having short hair, woohoo!

I read an article on LinkedIn which suggests there are eight small things upon which others judge your personality. Here are those eight things:

How you treat waiters and receptionists

How often you check your phone

Repetitive, nervous habits

How long you take to ask questions

Your handshake

Tardiness

Handwriting

Eye contact

I agree with most of the things on this list I have to admit. Except for maybe someone’s handwriting, and that’s more because, who sees anyone’s handwriting anymore? It’s becoming more and more rare, though saying that if I saw a lawyer for instance who drew love hearts over the top of every “i” then I would find it hard to take them seriously.

I would add to that list, getting someone’s name right. My name is Jaslyn, and I have been called everything from Jasmine (understandable confusion), Joslyn, Jessalyn, Catherine, and many others. Sure, my name might be a bit unusual, but I came across someone the other day who still couldn’t get it right after I repeated it, spelled it and wrote it down. This actually was a lawyer, and needless to say I didn’t hire her as it didn’t leave a very good lasting impression; after all if she couldn’t get my name right, what else wouldn’t she get right?

Okay, so let’s explore the suggested list a little bit more.

How you treat waiters and receptionists

Are you a snob? Do you think you’re better than these people? Thence nice and treat them like a human being. They don’t deserve to be treated differently just because you might happen to be a manager and sit further up a corporate tree than them. Thank them, show them common courtesies, ask them how they’re doing. Not doing that, and looking down on them instead or snubbing them, not saying than you to waiters when they refill your water glass or take your dishes away, just makes you look like a jerk in my eyes.

How often you check your phone

Oh my gosh, I cannot stand when people bring phones to meetings, or you go catch up with someone and they won’t stop checking their freaking phones. I mean seriously, are you there to catch up with me or to play with your damn phone? It is so incredibly rude to check your phone when someone is in the middle of talking, it is one of my absolute pet hates.

In meetings, I understand some staff are on call and that is fine, but just bringing your phone in just because… it’s just not on. If you’re expecting an urgent call, then you let the group know, with an apology for bringing the phone in.

If you bring the phone in to a meeting for no reason, or you keep checking it while we’re catching up, you will lose brownie points.

Repetitive, nervous habits

Twirling your hair, picking at your finger nails, knees jumping up and down, nervous babbling. This can give the appearance of being unsettled, nervous, unsure and lacking in confidence. Some people just have those kinds of personalities, and I think we all have them in certain situations. But at work, if I see someone like that it makes me think twice about what tasks I might delegate them because I get a sense of incompetence when they show these traits when doing the basics, I don’t feel confident in getting them to try and do any more.

If you are not sure what your nervous ticks might be, then film yourself for a while, film yourself under pressure and see what it is that you do. One of the girls I pole with worked out the other day that when she’s trying to gear herself up for a hard trick she does three things, adjusts her bottoms, tightens her pony tail and then scratches her nose!

We all do it, the best I can recommend is work out what your nervous ticks are, and be conscious of in what situations they occur and try to avoid doing them.

How long you take to ask questions

Ok so this one isn’t about how long it takes you to formulate a question, but rather, how long you keep jabbering about yourself before you ask the other person a question. These are those people who talk about themselves a lot. While you’re sitting there wondering when this person will just shut the hell up. And if they do ask you a question it tends to only be because they actually want to answer it themselves.

If someone asks you a question, answer it succinctly but follow their body language to gauge their interest. If they continue to ask you questions then by all means keep answering them, but do try and ask them questions as well, at least as many as they’re asking you.

Your handshake

Raise your hand if you hate a limp handshake? What does it tell you about the person? I try not to put too much stock in them anymore as it seems most people either do the dainty half shake or have a limp handshake these days. But I do like it when I find someone who has a strong grip handshake like me, I find it instills a bit more confidence in them. They come across as a strong and confident person to me, whereas sometimes the limp or dainty ones can be a bit like they’re a bit grossed out by even just shaking someone’s hand.

A firm handshake is the way to go!

Tardiness

Do not ever be late!

Unless you have a legitimate reason, tardiness is just not acceptable. It doesn’t show any respect for the person you’re meeting with or catching up with. It makes it seem as though you think it’s perfectly fine to to waste their time, like it’s not as valuable as theirs.

If you are running late for whatever reason, you let them know as soon as you can. And by as soon as you can, I don’t mean, you’re due to meet at 2pm so you text them at 2.05 saying oops I’m running late.

Handwriting

So analysing someone’s handwriting used to be a thing, but in the electronic age I can’t say I get much of a chance to see anyone’s handwriting anymore. If I did see an adult doing love hearts or something everywhere then I’d probably frown and wonder how seriously they took themselves though.

Eye contact

I do have to wonder what is wrong with people who can’t look you in the eye when having a conversation. Sometimes it feels like they’re trying to hide something, and sometimes it just comes across as being nervous and not confident in themselves. And then flip side of that the people who hold your eye for too long, it can feel like they’re either flirting with you or that they’re trying to intimidate you by staring you down.

This is a tricky one, how do you know how much eye contact is enough? I think it depends on who you’re talking to. Your intimate partner you want to be able to look them deep in the eyes and have an open and honest conversation and see that reflected in their eyes. Someone you’ve just met you might hold their eyes for a second, maybe look at their lips as they’re talking, if you stop and think about something, sometimes I’d glance over their shoulder or something so it doesn’t look like I’m frowning at them or glaring or anything.

This can be a really hard one to get right, so if you’re unsure then maybe talk to your family or close friends, or just watch them and see how they interact with others and how they’re received by others. If you’re really concerned I’m sure there are short courses on verbal and non-verbal communication that might help.

Are there any other ways you use to judge people’s personalities? Let me know in the comments below!

Walking is great for you. It gets the body moving, it gets you off the couch, and it makes you feel good about yourself. It doesn’t need to be a long walk, just a 10 minute walk will do.

If an improvement in mood and happiness isn’t enough, think about the other physical benefits to getting the body moving. You burn calories, work your muscles, give your heart a bit of a workout which is always good. What do you have to lose by treating yourself to a walk?

When I was shopping with a couple of girlfriends last weekend we stopped in a store that does imported snack foods and this mini hamburger set was there. It’s a Japanese product and basically there’s a whole lot of powders and trays and you mix stuff together, microwave it and Bob’s your uncle, you have a mini hamburger, fries and drink!

Below are the steps that show how it all goes together. First of course you have to take everything out of the box, which comes neatly wrapped in another packet, but be careful when removing this as you need it to make up things like the tray, fries packet and cheese template.

And below is all the stuff contained in that inner packet…

Then… let’s go and cut everything up ready to start making the burger meal.

First bit to actually cook is the fries. This is in the yellow packet, which you empty into the triangle shaped tray with the ribs in the bottom of it. There is a little “cup” for lack of a better word, and you put two of these cups of water in, stir it all together and then press it down to the bottom of the tray. You might need to get in there with your fingers to squish it down.

This then goes into the microwave for 30 seconds for a 600W microwave or 40 seconds for a 500W microwave. When it’s done you pop the block of uh, fry, out of the tray and then use the ribs as guidelines to chop it into fries and then stick it into the fries packet.

Next we move on to the burger part, this is the brown packet. It’s emptied into the square dish and then, the instructions I had said add one cup of water, but I had to add two to get it to stick together properly so maybe start with one and see how you go. This then gets squished into the middle tub of the three tub tray.

Then we put the buns together which is the orange packet. This also gets mixed in the square tray – you might find you need to clean the trays and the spoon in between mixes. With this bun powder you add 2 cups of water, stir it and then you spoon one half into each of the round tubs to the side of the burger. The mixture should only come up to about where the line is half way up the bun tubs.

Here is what that three tub tray will look like when the burger and bun mixes are in. This will need to go in the microwave for 30 seconds for a 600W microwave or 40 seconds for a 500W microwave.

When it comes out of the microwave you cut the buns in half, and then you’re supposed to cut the burger into 4 patties so that the burgers end up like a double burger bun, but it’s too tiny to do that, so I just left it at 2 patties.

Next bit to make up is the cheese which is in the blue packet. This goes in either the corner or the square tray it doesn’t matter. Add one cup of water to the cheese powder and mix it together. Then you grab the part of the packet that had the blue rectangle on it and try to press the cheese out to match the dimensions of the blue rectangle. Obviously my squashing ability isn’t that great so my cheese doesn’t look perfect!

You then cut this rectangle in half to make two square slices of cheese and these get popped on top of the burger patties.

So the next part was going to be the ketchup to finish off the burgers but I opened the wrong bloody packet and didn’t realise until I’d added water, so I ended up making the cola first. You take the little cup and fill it till the water is about 1cm from the top and then add the cola which is the pink packet. It will fizz and bubble for a few seconds, then just give it a quick stir and it’ll be all good.

Ok so then I did the ketchup which is in the red packet. This can be mixed in either the triangle or the square dish, either is fine, and then just add two cups of water to it and stir. It makes heaps of ketchup so there’ll be plenty for the burgers and left over if you wanted some for dipping the fries in.

The ketchup then gets spread over top of the cheese on the burgers, or I suppose you could put it on the bun, whatever your preference is.

Then it’s just a matter of finishing the burger assembly and stabbing them with the little toothpicks and voila there’s your meal! I included an Australian 50 cent piece in the picture below so you can get an idea of just how small this snack/meal is. It’s pretty darn tiny that’s for sure.

Did I eat it? I did. I tried not to think about what I was putting in to my body with eating it, but I was pretty curious about how it would actually taste. It wasn’t that great, flavour or consistency wise but it was still a fun little exercise.

There are a few other snacks like this that Kracie do, like donuts and sushi and stuff. This was quite entertaining so I might get those at some point and see what they’re like.

Pole class. I had my dance class on Saturday and we started learning the routine this week which is always fun.

Shopping. I met up with a couple of girlfriends on Sunday and we went looking for clothes to wear to a high tea that we’re going to in a couple of weeks. Well they looked, I was just there for the company as I already have a dress to wear.

Pamphlet delivery. So I signed up to do pamphlet delivery, the pay is crap really but I thought why pay to go to the gym and walk when I can get someone else to pay me to walk. So we’ll see how it goes.

Lunch. I went to lunch with a girlfriend which was nice, it was good to catch up, we haven’t been out for a while.

Coffee and cake. One of my staff took me out for coffee and cake today,she had noticed that things hadn’t been so great for me lately and was worried about me. It was nice to have someone just notice like that and ask if I was ok.

Zoos can be a controversial topic, especially depending on what zoo you’re talking about. Personally, I love the Adelaide and Monarto Zoos, I’ve been to two others overseas but they were the kind of zoos that drug animals for photos and I can’t get on board with that sort of practise.

Some people or groups (hello, PETA) believe animals, especially wild animals like lions, shouldn’t be held in captivity. But what happens when a species are dying out, say they’re critically endangered and in the next 10 years will be extinct in the wild. What do you do then? You bring that species into captivity and breed them with the aim of releasing a population of them into the wild.

Or do you think that we should just let these animals go extinct? Maybe there is an argument for that, maybe it’s the natural order of things. But what about when it’s not? Take the black rhino for example, it’s critically endangered in Africa and although in many areas it’s illegal to hunt them, it still happens. So sitting on your hands and thinking enacting laws is enough is equivalent to sticking your head in the sand and hoping the problem goes away. And it will go away because there won’t be any rhino left, but is that the outcome we want?

And so we come back to zoos, and the purpose of many zoos is not just to exhibit animals for the public to see, but to educate them on each animals’ plight. To conserve species using sometimes even a genetic based breeding program that incorporate zoos not just in one country but internationally as well.

I know there are zoos where the focus is on people being able to pet animals like tigers, or ride elephants. Those zoos, I have a problem with. They drug the tigers for a photo, they beat the elephants into submission, and that is just awful. Don’t support those zoos.

Zoos like Adelaide and Monarto Zoo, they are conservation focussed, they want to save species and educate the public and engage them in helping save the animals as well.

So I challenge you, go to your local zoo, not just to see the animals, but if the zookeepers do any talks, go to a couple of those, find out what the focus of the zoo is and how they achieve it. You will be amazed at what they are trying to achieve.

The last week has gone really quickly, there’s been heaps happening at work and in my personal life it’s all just sort of zoomed past.

New term of pole. Last Saturday I started a new term at my pole dancing studio. The first class back can be the hardest I find because it’s revision of tricks from the previous term and so is really intense! But it still felt really good to be back despite the sore muscles.

Shopping. After my pole class I met one of my girlfriends at a shopping centre in one of the richer Adelaide areas (Burnside for any Adelaidians reading, so you know what I mean). Oh my gosh there were some absolutely gorgeous clothes there, but though I earn a decent salary it’s just not decent enough to buy anything there.

Mothers day. Last Sunday was Mothers day and so I took my Mum up to Monarto Zoo, I’m not sure that she’s ever been before so it was a great experience for her and turned out to be a not too bad day which is good.

Solicitor. This might be an odd one to call a highlight, but given everything that’s happening with mine and my former partners separation, it was time to bring in a solicitor to get some advice so that I had a better understanding of how to get everything resolved. The solicitor I saw today was good and I feel much better now I have a better idea of what I need to do and what the possible options for settlement are.

Window shopping. I didn’t feel like going straight home after work and so I decided to go into the city because they do late night shopping on Friday nights, so I just wandered around and looked at things, tried a couple of pieces of clothing on…noticed they don’t actually go on sale until tomorrow, so I’m going to go back to the local store and pick them up when they’re on sale tomorrow lol.

How has your week been? Are there any highlights you would like to share?